1. Technical Field
The invention relates to the storage of business processes in a computer environment. More particularly, the invention relates to the conversion and storage of Workflow processes into a reusable directory hierarchy in a computer environment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to compete in today's fast-paced world, businesses need strong support for their processes. Getting tasks completed quickly and efficiently is the goal of business software.
Ultimately, tasks are completed at a business because people work together. Business productivity software has typically focused on supporting the activity of the specialist in isolation of others. However, individuals do not accomplish business goals in complete isolation, no matter how much sophisticated equipment is placed in front of them. The challenge, therefore, is to bring together a collection of people who may specialize in different fields, and to provide a means to coordinate their different activities toward the accomplishment of a common goal. It is worth thinking of the collection of people as a team that is working toward a common goal while still retaining separate roles.
Business processes (and the Workflow systems that support them) range from mission-critical to administrative. A good example of a mission-critical business process is order fulfillment. Here, a customer places an order which comes into the company. The product is either built or retrieved from a warehouse, it is delivered to the originator, a bill is sent, and the money collected. It is easy to recognize mission-critical business processes because they are so central to what the company does as a business.
In addition to these mission-critical processes, are a multitude of lesser noticed processes which all contribute to the smooth functioning of an organization. Workers submit timecards for processing, submit status change requests of various sorts; run inventories of the warehouse or supply cabinets; produce brochures, manuals, advertisement copy, and notices; handle customer complaints or requests for help; and balance and maintain the accounting books. There are even processes to monitor and change processes in management. Essentially, whenever there is more than one person involved in completing a particular goal, it can be viewed as a process. The processes that are not directly part of the main business, but nevertheless support it, are known as administrative processes.
Manual business processes are slow and unreliable. For a manual business process to work the members of a team need to know not only their own activity, but must also have an understanding of what has happened before this step, and what needs to happen next. Success requires that all of the members have the same understanding of the process. If different members have different understandings, then the process can break down. A document may sit indefinitely in a person's in-box who does not understand the urgency of the situation. A form can be routed to the wrong person and subsequently lost. Some studies have shown that a large part of an organization's time is spent locating misplaced documents.
Manual processes are opaque. When a person submits a request into a manual process, e.g., to purchase something, it is commonly the case that any status of the process will not be available until the very end, when the purchased item does or does not arrive. This lack of information on the progress of the process makes it difficult to plan related activities appropriately. Calling each participant to check up on the status of a request can be very time consuming, both for the originator as well as the person performing the current activity.
Manual processes are difficult to change. All process participants need to be informed of the new process policies. Their compliance can not be guaranteed because of each person's varying interpretation and understanding of the changes. A great deal of time and effort may be expended on improving the way an organization takes care of manual processes.
Many organizations have already recognized the importance of coordination and have launched initiatives to automate business processes. They discover quickly that canned solutions are not possible, especially in the case of white collar workers where the actual business process depends upon the unique skills and capabilities of the individuals in the organization, the business domain, and the culture of the organization. These should be viewed not as random differences between organizations, but rather evidence that the organization has adapted to the specific talents of the individuals available.
The process that an organization uses is often a key differentiator which gives them an edge over their competition. The result is that organizations need to either customize standard solutions or create new custom, applications to support their processes.
An organization has many choices for implementing their custom applications, particularly with regard to main-line business activities. Support for administrative processes is a little more constrained; the value of a given process is modest so it is not worth a large expense to implement a custom application. At the same time there are a large number of these administrative processes, so a significant amount of organizational time could be dedicated to these processes. To support administrative processes, the organization needs a fast and easy way to customize processes to fit their needs; and to change those processes as their needs evolve.
The problem is bringing these processes together into a cohesive, accessible system. An organization's intranet provides connectivity to a vast number of documents and services. The challenge is to have the ability to give access to Workflow processes across the extranet to partners, suppliers, and customers. This would allow the Workflow to extend beyond the organization's employees. The key is to be able to share Workflow processes.
It would be advantageous to provide a lightweight directory access protocol workflow management system that takes a Workflow process and converts it to a reusable format that can be easily shared between entities. It would further be advantageous to provide a lightweight directory access protocol workflow management system that allows the user to easily create Workflow processes in a graphical environment, thereby enhancing the ability to create reusable processes.